In yet another example of every day being Opposite Day for self-styled “progressives,” Mike Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action managed to totally misrepresent the meaning of Independence Day in their Facebook announcement yesterday, and quoted someone who believed in widespread gun ownership (long before the days of their idiotic "gunsense") to boot.

“Declare your independence from gun violence,” they urge in a vacuous, meaningless statement that totally ignores defensive gun uses. That's hardly surprising for a group that maintains those never happen, so naturally, they supplement their sentiment with misleading “statistics,” as Truth Revolt explains.

Still, it’s the quoted lyrics used in the MILM message that merits special attention, those being the first strain from John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” the official march of the United States.

Not apparent to anyone shallow and ignorant enough to take that post at face value is an inconvenient truth.

“In 1917 Sousa was chairman of the National Association of Shotgun Owners. He served the AATA again as president in 1918," the Trapshooting Hall of Fame reports in its testimonial to the man.

“When asked by a reporter in Chicago while attending a Grand American Handicap what he considered life’s best gifts, he replied with the title of one of his articles that had appeared in the American Shooter: ‘A Horse, A Dog, A Gun, and a Girl— with Music on the Side,’” the overview continues.

Perhaps the MILMs' goals would have been better served had they instead quoted President John Adams, who had an Independence Day-specific message for his wife Abigail, herself a “mom” of some note who approved of her husband's convictions.

“It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more,” he enthusiastically recommended.

One thing is certain: If they could, the MILMs would reduce everyone to a pathetic dependence on the state for the very act of self-preservation. Fortunately, they cannot, and that is certain to ensure a continuance of explosive rage on their part, from one End of this Continent to the other.

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David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Email him at dcodreaAThotmailDOTcom.